The gifted and dedicated students in the DeSales Dance department take the stage to present their annual Dance EnsembleConcert, during three nights of exhilarating performances on March 17, 18 and 19, on the Main Stage of the Labuda Center for the Performing Arts. Staged by seven professional choreographers, the concert will display a variety of styles from classical ballet to modern and African dance.

Assistant Professor Gretchen McLaine has restaged a 1983 work by Clay Taliaferro from the Labanotation score by agreement with the Dance Notation Bureau. The piece, entitled Falling off the Back Porch, is an evocative and impressionistic dance, showcasing the creative potential of the Humphrey-Limón technique. Assistant Professor Kristin Fieseler has created a new modern work entitled Bring Her Home. Choreographed to the beautiful music of Schubert, this piece will be accompanied live by Nathan Diehl. Director of Dance Tim Cowart has reworked a group piece that focuses on the power play involved in partnering. Set to a haunting Phillip Glass score, it strikes an ominous chord.

Guest artist Luis Bravo has put together a short ballet entitled Le Cid, combining classical lines and structure with contemporary movement to enhance its Spanish-flavored theme. Guest artist Janet Peck, just returned from Africa, brought back the rhythms and movements of that beloved continent, setting a new work on a cast of 14 dancers.

DeSales University Alumna Rebecca Herman, who has just earned an M.F.A.in Dance from SUNY-Purchase, has returned to DSU to set a new piece on the graduating senior Dance majors. Her work, Long and Winding Road, is inspired by and danced to the familiar music of The Beatles.

In addition to the works by Dance faculty and visiting choreographers, audiences will be treated to a work by this year's Arts Angels Guest Artist, Seán Curran. Curran hand-selected 15 students from the Dance program to work on a brand new piece titled Another Metal Garden. Curran has been a principal dancer for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, performed in the Off-Broadway show Stomp, choreographed for various companies around the world, and still manages his own dance company based in New York City.

The concert will be presented on the Main Stage of the Labuda Center for the Performing Arts, Center Valley. Performance times are 8:00 p.m. Friday, March 17 and Saturday, March 18, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, March 21. Ticket prices are $14 for adults and $11 for students and seniors on Friday and Sunday; prices are $15 and $12, respectively, on Saturday. Tickets can be purchased by contacting the Box Office at (610) 282-3192 or online at www.desales.edu.

For more information on the program, contact Tim Cowart, director of dance at DeSales, at 610-282-1100, ext. 1663.